Reactions to the release of Florida's Value-Added Model (VAM) scores for teachers

Mon, Feb 24, 2014 @ 2:30 pm
| updated Fri, Mar 7, 2014 @ 9:21 pm

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Just a few moments after Florida’s Department of Education released it Value-Added Model (VAM) scores for teachers across the state, reaction from local and national education leaders began pouring into the Times-Union newsroom. Throughout the day, Times-Union journalists will provide updates about what people are saying about the scores. Also, send your opinion about the scores to schools@jacksonville.com

2:19 p.m.

Bev Slough, a St. Johns County School Board member, says she has mixed feelings about the VAM data release.

“I am conflicted about the public having VAM data on specific teachers because, at this point, the data is not verified and the formula is still being scrutinized for accuracy,” she said. “Therefore, a superior teacher may appear to be less effective while a teacher who is not as strong may appear to be making a dramatic difference in student achievement when that is not the case, causing parents and others to draw conclusions about the teaching ability of a particular teacher that may not be factual.”

Slough continued with, “I believe that until the formula can be vetted for accuracy and reliability, there is a strong chance that data on individual teachers may be inaccurate or misinterpreted.”

1:25 p.m.

David Davis, executive director of teaching and learning at Baker County School District expressed delight at how well Baker teachers rank among the state in value-added scores.

“While I am disappointed in the court ruling regarding the release of VAM scores, I am glad to see the high numbers of our teachers that received favorable scores,” Davis said.

Davis said a teacher’s total evaluation is comprised of 50 percent VAM and 50 percent observation from an administrator. In the observation, the administrators look for superior skills in teacher

For most of the teachers that receive a VAM score, it represents 50 percent of their evaluation. The other 50 percent comes from an Educational Leader’s classroom evaluation of a teacher preparation and planning, classroom management, diagnostic assessments, and technology.

Davis also called the model not an exact science.

“The concern I have for the release of the VAM is that it represents only a part of the total evaluation, and that looking at it in isolation can be misleading,” he said. “Because the VAM is produced from a statistical model, using predictor/expectation variables, it is not, in my opinion, an exact science. While it was created to show what is happening academically, in the classroom, there are many more areas of teaching and learning that needs to be taken into account other than just high stakes testing.”

1:11 P.M.

Christopher P. Guerrieri, a Duval County teacher and education blogger, wrote his response to the VAM data.

“About a year ago, a paper in New York printed the addresses of all the registered gun owners in their town and it was perfectly legal for them to do so. People though were rightfully outraged. The Times Union should have learned from their mistake that just because you can do something it doesn’t mean that they should.

When the Times-Union decided to print the VAM scores of area teachers they said selling a few papers was worth selling out the regions teachers. VAM creates a prediction and then grades teachers on whether they made that prediction or not. I don’t know about you but I want to be evaluated on what I did do not on what some complicated mathematical formula says it thinks I should do, a formula by the way that have been known to generate scores off by several standard deviations.

Not only does VAM not take into account attendance, behavior, parental involvement, poverty and so many other factors but more than half the teachers evaluated are done so on students they have never seen in their classroom or on subjects they did not teach and that not the scores is what the Times Union should be telling the public. The TU is acting like a gun runner who tells them self I just provide the guns I don’t pull the trigger in an attempt to ease their conscious of the firestorm that this is going to create.

Parents have long had a remedy if they wanted to see their teachers past evaluations and that is to go to the school board building and to check out their files. Now the Times Union has just given them a context-less set of numbers that for the most part aren’t based on what is happening in the classroom.

Teachers already have a tough enough job and have already had to sacrifice so much in Florida over the last few years that they shouldn’t have to endure this indignation. The Times Union should be fighting to help the profession not to further harm it.

Teachers are not afraid of getting evaluated, they just want to be done so fairly and shame on the state of Florida for coming up with the VAM method that no respecting education policy maker or mathematician for that matter say should be used to evaluate teachers and shame on the Times Union for doubling down on this tragedy and making them available. Selling a few papers shouldn’t be more important than doing what is right.“

12:56 p.m.

Gary Chartrand, the Ponte Vedra Beach businessman who chairs the state board of education, said he shares with Pam Stewart, Florida’s Education Commissioner, the concern that releasing value-added scores without providing public access to the other half of teacher evaluations — the part typically completed by principals or other education leaders — “is only half the story.”

“If you don’t show the other half, then you don’t have the whole picture,” Chartrand said. “I think we need all the information before we start evaluating teachers, to be fair.... I am all for transparency, but I think we should have all the data first.”

Under state law, teachers’ complete evaluations, including classroom observations and other input typically provided by their supervisors, is shielded from the public until a year later. But a court has ruled the value-added scores, which make up half the evaluation and can affect employment and salary issues, are public information.

Therefore, if a parent wants to see a teacher’s evaluation, they could get value-added data for the most recent school year, but instructional evaluation information from the prior year.

12:47 p.m.

Patricia Weeks, chairman of the Baker County School Board, e-mailed her response to the public release of VAM scores.

“It is good news that Baker County teachers ranked third in the state in aggregate VAM ratings and I rejoice with them,” Weeks said. “Our teachers work hard to increase student learning gains and it is encouraging to be recognized.”

Weeks added: “However, the Value-Added scores for our teachers being released today are challenging because they can be misinterpreted without a total picture of that teacher’s performance in the classroom.”

In Baker County, VAM scores are 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation, including those who teach subjects like physical education, social studies, and science. They cannot have a direct influence on reading and math assessments, yet they are evaluated as if they did. The other 50 percent comes from an administrator’s evaluation.

“It is my concern that someone looking at the VAM score would not see the total picture of that teacher’s performance,” Weeks said. “I would ask that parents and outside observers of our teachers keep all components of a teacher’s evaluation in mind when judging performance.”

11:15 a.m.

Sharyl Wood, executive director of administrative services for Nassau County schools, said the value-added model was devised to give teachers of special or struggling groups of children a “level playing field” in that portion of their evaluations. The student performance data is manipulated in the value added model to account for certain school or student characteristics, she said, for such things as whether they’re are just learning English or have a disability or are chronically absent.

But it does not adjust for student poverty levels, which puzzles her.

Also, most teachers in middle schools and high schools don’t teach FCAT-measured reading or math or Algebra I in ninth grade, yet those teachers not teaching those classes are rated on them.

“The concept for value added is good, but for all practical purposes, to me, it’s not at the point where it’s workable” for evaluating teachers, schools or districts.

Ranking Nassau teachers solely on value-added scores is problematic, she said, because even the lowest ranked teacher in a school could still be an excellent teacher, she said. She said the district is small enough for principals and others to know which teachers shouldn’t be teaching and to “counsel them out” of the profession.

“Those scores should reflect what principals and assistant principals already know about those teachers,” she said.

11:00 a.m.

Duval County Superintendent Nikolai Vitti said he believes student achievement should be factored into teacher evaluations, but “the data that you [The Times-Union] are releasing indicates that we have work to do.”

Vitti said his biggest concern with the data centers on how teachers who don’t teach reading or math are scored. He said teachers who don’t teach those subjects are earning VAM scores based on reading or math scores of students and that’s not fair to art, music, science, writing or social studies teachers.

“If you’re a sixth-grade social studies teacher, you want to be held accountable for sixth-grade, social-studies content,” Vitti said.

Vitti is calling for the state to provide money to the education department so that officials there can create state-wide assessments for all subjects. Having a test for all subjects would mean a science teacher would get a VAM score based on science test results and not reading or math. Florida doesn’t need to abandon VAM, Vitti said, but not changing the method for non-reading and math teachers will continue to erode those teachers’ faith in their evaluation.

For Duval, Vitti said the data will show him which teachers have shown the most growth in reading and math. Teachers who show 25 percent growth or more will either be recruited to work in lower-performing schools or, if the teacher already works in one of those schools, given incentives to stay. Vitti said the district doesn’t know exactly who all those teachers are yet, but district officials are working to pinpoint every one.

10:45 a.m.

Gavin Rollins, the spokesperson for the Clay County school district, said the district believes their assessment is a fair way to measure teacher performance.

“It balances several methods of evaluation,” Rollins said. “The state’s VAM model is only a small part of the (Clay evaluation) formula. Specific questions about the VAM formula should be referred to the Florida Department of Education.”

10:30 a.m.

The Florida Education Association, the state’s teachers’ union, released a statement about the scores, calling the VAM data meaningless. Andy Ford, the union’s president, cautioned everyone not to jump to conclusions about the rankings of teachers because the numbers provided by the DOE are based solely upon student test scores, in many cases ranking teachers on students they didn’t teach or on subjects they didn’t teach.

“Once again the state of Florida puts test scores above everything else in public education and once again it provides false data that misleads more than it informs,” Ford said. “When will the DOE stop being beholden to flawed data and when will it start listening to the teachers, education staff professionals, administrators and parents of Florida?”

Also in the statement, the teachers’ union stated that “Nearly all teachers’ VAM numbers are calculated according to students’ FCAT scores, yet only about 30 percent teach students and subjects tested on the FCAT.”

“So for 70 percent or more of teachers, the VAM does not even attempt to measure the teacher’s actual teaching and yet the VAM data released purports to rank their performance,” the statement reads. “The Legislature openly recognized this flaw last year in passing SB 1664, which requires future VAM scores to be based upon a teacher’s actual students. But most of the data released by the DOE does not take into account the new law, making all of the data meaningless.”

9:45 a.m.

Renna Lee Paiva, president of Clay County Education Association, said teachers already started calling her office trying to understand why the newspaper has published this information.

“My executive director and I are going to spend the day saying ‘Calm down. It’s OK. Yes, you are a great teacher’,” Paiva said. “It’s going to be a long day.”

Paiva said, in Clay, 2,700 teachers received VAM scores, but only 700 of those scores come from teachers who taught subjects that the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test measures. Raiva, a guidance counselor, said she doesn’t know her VAM score or care to know it.

Paiva said when teachers receive their VAM score, they scratch their heads.

“They’re highly insulted,” she said. “I just try to calm them down and say it’s not reflective of you as a teacher. I sit there and I say, ‘I can’t explain it’.”

In the immediate future, the release will hurt the morale of teachers, Paiva said, because parents will look at the scores of their child’s teacher and perhaps have a different opinion about that person. However, over time, Paiva said she believes parents will see the numbers and think “Oh no, that’s not true. Mrs. so-and-so is a great teacher and I don’t care what the math says.”

9:15 a.m.

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Diane Ravitch tweeted about the release of VAM scores. Ravitch, who is now an education research professor at New York University, said: “Florida Outrage! Junk Science Ratings Will be Released to Media.”